MANY thanks to Kay, who sent the link to this pattern this morning.
I feel that I should find this pattern in my size and make it up immediately, in case we are ever invaded and I find myself leading a cell of the Resistance. (I used to be obsessed with resistance narratives, especially Story of a Secret State
My point is, with this dress, the beret, and the jaunty neckerchief, I would SO be a leader of the Resistance. I'd have some unobjectionable cover story — running an orphanage? Where some of the "children" were actually "little people" AND demolition experts? — but in reality, I'd be obtaining false papers, robbing weapons transports, engaging in acts of sabotage, and using those fantastic pockets to hide my snub-nosed derringer. (And as long as I'm writing this, at some point, I get to fly a prop plane.)
Too bad my twin sister, the quisling in yellow, tries to betray me. Luckily, we knew she was up to no good, so we distracted her with a decoy mission while spiriting the real fugitives out of the country (that's where the prop plane comes in).
Or, you know, you could just make this dress and become the leader of something else (Resistances being fewer and farther between these days). Good luck!
A Dress A Day 
Resistance to boring and poorly-made modern fashion fads? That seems like as good a cause as any.
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Plus, the orange gloves!
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Ooh, I want to know how those pockets are made! Ditto Latter-Day Flapper’s comment.
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I love how it looks so drapey! Need to find it in my size too!
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What’s going on with the transparent woman in the background, leaning on a transparent rail? Is she a spy? A double agent? A long lost sister?
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I believe where the resistance comes in is when the woman in brown had her regular sized feet crammed into those shoes.”We have ways of making you talk, Clara. You should just come clean right now.””No, you don’t mean… not the size-6 Jimmy Choo crocodile pumps!””It’s not technically torture, Madam. While they do hurt, you are never actually in fear for your life.””Fine! Bring them on. But, you will learn nothing from me, nothing.”
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I think I could wear this outfit about town on my daily errands. I would be secretly resisting as I grocery shopped and mailed my packages…plus I could be super tall and thin with pointy little feet…
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How I love the pockets to these! So drapey.
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Ditto Latter-Day Flapper.What a classic!I don’t know for certain on the pockets on this dress since I don’t have the actual pattern, but the pockets are probably made very similar to pockets in jeans.The V neck is awfully low for those days! oooooo :)The transparent lady has to be a spy, right?
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xstpenguin,The drape below the pocket comes from the cut of the skirt, which is a “peg” silhouette. The pocket construction is a regular inserted pocket.
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“Listen carefully. I shall say zis only once.”
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Like the ‘ice cream cone’ dress, these pockets just beg to be turned into one big pouch pocket. The extra fullness in the skirt front would hide your Derringer wonderfully.
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The hazy figure on the left is the ghost of Mata Hari…Patron Saint of Spies. She likes having this title, because in reality she was NOT a spy, but this way she still gets to be “in the game”, spying on spies from the Great Beyond.She’s learned a lot from watching, and keeps putting in a request for reincarnation.
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The Long Walk was such a good book. It’s so sad it was not true.
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This pattern screams for a drapey challis. I have another one like this too that needs challis. Does anyone out there know where to get challis these days??
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1) What? Ah said, listen very carefully, ah shall say zis only once! Melissa, you rule.2)Perhaps a dirigible could be used to distract the quisling sister, who thinks she knows you and thus follows the hydrogen balloon. Then you sneak out in the prop plane before meeting up with a mysterious fella in a blue box.I love this game.
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Ah! I too was going to bring up ‘Allo ‘Allo.Actually, whilst living in Quebec these past four months I quite frequently wore berets and neckerchiefs. I bet when they try to break away from Canada they’ll need some sort of Resistance then!
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She is in the news media resistance. She battles daily to keep the public calm and truly informed. She fights sensationalism and tabloid journalism everywhere. Since the evil mass media have smeared her name, she is on the no-fly list and must pilot her trusty Sopwith Camel from airfield to airfield to spread the news!
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Completely irrelevantly to this lovely pattern, sorry – but I wanted to thank you, because last year or so I commented on one of your posts about wanting to buy a sewing machine but not being sure which one to get, and you were so lovely and encouraging, and the upshot of it all is that I now have a sewing machine and have MADE A DRESS! It is only a very simple jumper, but I feel immensely proud of myself and glad that I’m on my way, so thank you!
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Yeah Stevy!!! Welcome to the cult!! Show us your dress!
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^^^What she said!^^^
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I love these vintage ads! Just discovered your blog after I googled Clothes With Character an old book I came across. This is so cool!
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I want to see the dress, too! A simple jumper sounds great! Dress it up, dress it down…good for you, Stevy!
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Well now, there are resistance movements going on these days, just ask my anti-militarism, anti-racist, activist daughter. If she wore this dress, she would be even more invincible.
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If [my daughter] wore this dress, she would be even more invincible. You know what you have to do.
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I so love pockets. Sandy
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The dress is totally not for me (buttons + the shape of the skirt), but the pockets would be! I can’t be without pockets.And Latter-Day Flapper is right. Resist them! Rescue as many victims as you can!
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Oh, and I’ve bought two 50 x 140remnants of blue Marimekko “Hein” cotton batiste print and I need to find a perfect use for them… involving a dress. Because “mekko” means “dress” in Finnish. Did you know?
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I can’t be without pockets either. I love pockets. I always put my hands in them.
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LOVE! this reminds me of katharine hepburn in woman of the year. sigh…
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Too funny, I just watched ‘Is Paris Burning’ the other weekend and enjoyed it immensely. Of course in that movie everyone dressed like it was the 60s, but one can dream.@Stevy – Congratulations! Every time someone makes her first dress, all the members of the Vast International Sewing Conspiracy (Who may or may not have a secret handshake. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you!) rub their hands together with glee.
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When I was a kid in the fifties, we had a neighbor, a French woman married to an American she had met during the tale-end of the war. He was a GI and she had been in the Resistence. My friends and I were about 12 and we used to visit “Monique” who was bored with our suburban town north of San Francisco. Our mothers were not so thrilled about us spending time with Monique who wore her hair in a “gamine” style and lots of mascara and exclaimed “merdre” when she was pissed. She held her cigarettes between her thumb and forefinger and took deep drags between sips of black coffee. Her stories were enthralling to us: mostly they were about how the resistence outwitted the Nazi occupiers, and were probably heavily edited for our tender consumption, but sometimes she would start a story that was clearly going someplace tragique and she would stop, take a deep drag on her cigarette and blow out a big cloud of smoke, and say “I ‘av zeen zuch theengs, young gels should not hear!” We were dying to hear the rest but we never learned how it ended.One night there was a huge commotion at their house- police, ambulance- lots of excitement. The next day we learned that Monique had shot George in the leg. She found out he had been fooling around on the side and decided to teach him a lesson. George was not seriously wounded and claimed she had been cleaning his gun and it went off accidently. He told the cops, that she had been in the French Resistence and that if she had wanted to kill him she would have! In those days, police were not so zealous about domestic disturbances so they left it at that. Shortly afterwards the family moved away and we never heard from them again. Our neighborhood seemed a lot duller afterwards.
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That thing about the orphanage and the children being demolition experts – I used to play that EXACT game with my Barbie and a set of “international” dolls dressed in the traditional clothing of their countries. Barbie ran the orphanage and the girls blew up bridges. Sometimes Ken showed up as a downed Allied pilot. Was there a book or movie with a similar plot? Where did we get that story? Was it The Hornet’s Nest with Rock Hudson? Because I remember there were children in that movie, but the plot details are hazy.
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WOw Anon… I wonder whatever happpened to Monique and George.
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We never found out. They moved very soon after the “incident” and nobody heard from them again!
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Here’s another gathered front pocket skirt you might like. Some serious shoulders on that sucker too.http://glassoffashion.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/the-small-print/
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I need pockets that deep to hide all my happy thoughts . . . you know, from the happy thought robbers. It’s a recession, you never know.
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